t)ic. 22, 1900 j 
the approach of man or horse. Gray and red squirrels 
abound. The reds have the usual impudende of their 
kind, and their numbers lend them courage. They are 
given to stealing, heroic surgery and gibing at incoming 
and outgoing guests. At times blue herons come from 
the lake to the mil] pond. I have watched a pair of them 
at break of day, noted their clumsy rise and observed that 
like some people they do not know what to do with their 
feet. We are told that there are a few wildcats left, and 
tales are told of a drove of wild pigs around Sterling 
Lake. A few years ago Harry Sloane took a 10 pound 
9 ounce Oswego bass from Greenwood Lake with a 
fi-ounce rod, and he tells me that it cost a goodly sum of 
money and a part of his reputation for veracity. George 
Hazon and Elias Sindel say it is so, and I believe what 
George Hazen tells me. Sindel informs people that I 
went woodcock shooting with him and missed every bird. 
I might go on talking to 3rou about my place and tell 
you of its many delights; tell you about the immense 
pmes, of the ever-flowing spring and the watercress- 
bordered rivulet that leads from it to the meadow ditch; 
icil you about the blue fringed gentians and the frost 
dowers, and how the poison ivy is the first to blush crim- 
son at the coming of the frost; how each mountain appears 
later as one immense bouquet; tell you how the cedars 
which through the summer seem to be 'dying take on the 
green when other trees have turned a rusty brown. I 
might tell you of all these things and only leave an im- 
pression with you that I am troubled with the vanity 
referred to before, because some of these things are mine. 
It might be vanity, but I love the country, and, like the 
old maid who once had a lover, ''I like to talk about it." 
There is something more connected with the place that I 
must speak of. It is the cook. She is a typical daughter 
of the green isle, and she is as emotional as any of her 
emotional race. She has threatened to "I'ave" us a score 
of times and has never done it- She sobs while thinking 
of the aged parents across the water; she cried when I 
sold a pet cow, and again was slyly hilarious when the 
horse broke away from me and when the dog tripped nie 
at the house corner. She is witty at times, and at times 
she knows it. Again she is droll and doesn't know it. 
To demonstrate the first statement, let me tell you that I 
employed a one-eyed painter named Cyclops, for instance. 
He was overfond of that which made Milwaukee famous, 
and when he went home on the Fourth of July, after weeks 
of deprivation, he took on too big a deck "load, lost his 
propellers -and did not get into port for several days. 
The cook took him to task for his neglect, and he said, 
"The water in the city upset me after drinking pure spring 
water so long, and I had awful cramps and have been 
awful sick," and the cook said to him, "Mr. Cyclops, when 
ye go home again ye'd better take a bottle of spring water 
along Avid ye." 
To prove the second statement, I will tell you that I was 
trymg to fill the lantern in the kitchen one day, and I 
presume that I was somewhat awkward in doing it. The 
clean Georgia pine floor was her pride, and she fidgeted 
and said, "Misther Hastings, if ye spill that ile God help 
ye on the flure." That made me spill it on the "flure" and 
I fled before her righteous wrath. Ah ! but she can broil 
a bird and baste a fish, and I would be sorry to have her 
"I'ave" us. 
I must say good-by, old farm, till the bluebirds come 
again; say it because this effusion is "idly running on with 
vain prolixity," also because three Frenchmen are pressing 
me to^go quail shooting in North Carolina, and Shelley 
says, "Where two or three are together, the devil is 
among them." W. W. Hastings. 
The Bison's Paradise. 
BY CHARLES HALLOCK. 
When- the last of the bufifaloes crossed the Red River 
of the North going westward in 1857, they incontinentlv 
turned their backs upon the most delectable pasturage in 
the land. Then the grass waved breast high in the coulees. 
Vast beds of vetches enriched the undulating prairies. 
Pellucid streams, averaging five miles apart, and nearly 
parallel, crossed the open expanse and emptied into the 
Red. Wide belts of oak, ash, elm, poplar, basswood, 
aspen, cottonwood and box elder, interspersed with 
thickets of willow, hazel, dogwood and wild plum, and 
festooned with grapevines, wild hop and cucumber vines 
fringed their banks, affording grateful shade to the bovine 
herds in summer, and shelter from the boreal winds in 
winter. Catch basins and sloughs which were seldom 
empty of sweet water were distributed everywhere. No 
alkali embittered the generous pools ; no stated pilgrimages 
to distant watering places were required; no beaten trails 
to doubtful Meccas scarified a cropped and dusty plain, as 
in the southwestern ranges along the Arkansas and Platte; 
no buffalo gnats imposed incessant torture ; no scathing 
fires ran through the grass to destroy the herbage. 
Over all this delectable section of northwestern Minne- 
sota scarcely a stone is to be seen except in the channels 
of the tortuous creeks, all tributary to the Red. The 
prairie is for the most part as level as a floor, vivid with 
green in the spring, resplendent with flowers in mid- 
summer, and golden in autumn wherever there is timber 
on_ the streams. At least these were its primal aspects 
before tillage had interrupted the natural processes of the 
seasons. Looking westward from the river the prairie 
seemed illimitable. Not one object broke the straight line 
of its intangible horizon. Eastward the landscape was 
diversified and park-like. Belts of heavy timber defined 
tlie courses of the crooked affluents which meandered 
through the parti-colored levels, now throwing up a heavy 
nimbus of foliage against the nearer sky. and anon pen- 
ciling the distant horizon with delicate tracings of blue. 
Here and there in the grassy intervals the raised turf 
would show the grave-like mounds of badgers and the 
-inuous ridges of giant moles, while countless dobs of up- 
turned earth betokened the busy work of gophers. In 
April the wild flowers begin to show themselves in deli- 
cate tints of purple, white and pink, modestly hiding at 
first amidst the grass, but by the first of May carpeting 
the sward with patches of embroidery as far as the eye 
can reach. Later on the colors are heightened, and 
eglantine, the wild rose predominates. Daisies, larkspurs, 
verbenas, harebells, lupines, violets and blue gentians 
bloom in lavish profusion, and by midsummer the whole 
FOR£:st ANi)^ STREAM, 
prairie is aglow with flame-like flowers, scarlet, gold and 
crimson, extending for miles. The blazing cardinal 
flower, branching rattlesnake weed and the towering mul- 
lein stalk with its tiny yellow bosses, stand like sentinels 
over the beds of sweet pea and rank grass which wave 
breast high beneath the sweep of the soft south wind. 
Goldenrod and marigold, purple asters, black-eyed Su- 
sans, ironweed and orange asclepias, around which fas- 
cinated butterflies gather so continuously that their yel- 
low wings seem to be a part of the plant — these emphasize 
the radiance of the landscape. Strangers always notice 
this abundance and variety of flowers. Within an area 
of no more than ten rods square I have collected three 
dozen kinds in twenty minutes, some of them gorgeous, all 
pretty, and a few fragrant, but none possessing the sweet 
odors of our Eastern blossoms, though they make up in 
a positive brilliancy what they lack in perfume. 
In May, too, the meads are alive with willets, snipe 
and plover, and the sloughs swarm with coots and bobo- 
links. In June the keen-eyed hawks begin to scrutinize 
the grass for nesting grouse and mallards, and the bitterns 
swoop down upon the unsuspecting garter snakes. Sum- 
mer ducks take to the woods along the streams, and rest- 
less catbirds and thrushes animate the thickets. In July 
occasional woodcock delight the sportsman as he recon- 
noiters the low ground by the river side, and when the 
twilight falls the owls and the whippoorwills take up 
their ghostly calls, while the wandering night hawk pur- 
sues his plaintive quest. August brings the bluejays and 
blackbirds in gathering hosts anent the ripening grain, and 
the first year that Kittson county was settled troops of 
gray squirrels would venture into the woodsheds, and 
black bears had the temerity to investigate the village 
school. Once, in 1881, a big bull moose trotted through 
the town of Hallock in broad daylight, hard by the rail- 
road depot. Prairie chickens were abundant and so tame 
that I drove a fledgling brood from the edge of town into 
the main street. Underbrush was alive with rabbits and 
timber grouse, and the rivers teemed with giant catfish, 
pickerel, sheepshead, sand pike, goldeneyes and great 
snapping turtles 40 pounds in weight. Bands of elk 
came within eleven miles of town. 
It is very different now. The old fur traders who 
followed the Red River trail on their annual pilgrimage 
to St. Paul and a market would not recognize- it. Rail- 
roads and immigration have wiped out the old features 
and the old landmarks, and the hum and clatter of the 
seeder, the reaper and threshing machines are heard from 
one end of the valley to the other. There is a continuous 
panorama of farmhouses, planted groves of thrifty trees, 
hay ricks, steam piles and stacks of grain. Every town 
along the lines of railroad has its grist and feed mill, ele- 
vator, lumber yard, cheese factory, creamery or stock 
yard, with a full assortment of hotels, schools, churches, 
public halls, libraries, fire engines, electric plants, brass 
bands, agricultural and literary societies, newspapers and 
miscellaneous stores, while any one driving across the 
country will find a greater proportion of well-to-do 
farmers and well-built, comfortable, painted houses, 
capacious barns, graded stock, poultry yards and market 
gardens than in many older States east of the Mississippi 
River. From a few score souls in 1879 the frontier coun- 
ties of Roseau and Kittson have increased to fifteen thou- 
sand in 1900. 
Yet, apart from the railroad lines there is still an ample 
field for persevering sportsmen. With permits to hunt 
over the bonanza farms one can make as big bags of 
chickens now as ever. The planted grain seems to attract 
and establish the grouse so that they become almost 
domesticated. In cold weather, when the ground is cov- 
ered with snow, they gather on the weathershed wheat 
stacks like barnyard fowls. In September there is prime 
teal and mallard shooting along the Roseau River and 
among the wooded sloughs. Some streams, like the 
Tamarack and Wild Rice rivers, spread out and lose 
themselves in almost impenetrable swamps which are 
grown up with cattails, slough gra^s and reeds 10 feet 
high. These swamps are surrounded with a cincture 
of hazel bush mixed with wild rose and willow, which 
harbor a few deer and afford the snuggest kind of refuge 
for ducks, bitterns, cranes, geese, coots and rails. 
But for big game the Roseau region is the location par 
excellence. Indeed, all that forested area which lies on 
the eastern slope of what was the bed of the glacial Lake 
Agassiz, between the Red River of the North and the 
Lake of the Woods, including not only the Great Roseau 
Swamp, as it used to be marked on the atlases, but the 
Thief River country, the Red Lake reservation and the 
Rainy River country, abounds in game and fur, and was 
the trapping ground of a big trading post fifty years ago. 
This eastern borderland where forest touches the prairie 
and grazing supplements the browse, has preserved in a 
remarkable manner the flora and fauna peculiar to both 
environments. No such physiological conditions have 
been observed anywhere else. One can find a greater 
variety of feathered and pelted fauna here in September 
and October than in any other part of the United States. 
Nearly all of the known varieties of the cervidse indig- 
enous to the continent abide here and fraternize in an 
exceptional manner. Elk were abundant here up to 1887, 
and to this day of 1900 there is no better moose country 
in America. Red deer are quite numerous, and speci- 
niens of black-tail deer, caribou and brush deer are not 
infrequent. Wolves are so numerous as to be a nuisance 
to settlers, and 'merchantable fur is so plenty that a con- 
siderable band of Indians continue to occupy their old 
stamping grounds with a persistency which only isolation 
and a modicum of success could command. 
The Roseau region is accessible by tri-weekly stage from 
Stevens and Hallock on the Great Northern R. R. The 
Thief River country lies due south. Both the Thief and 
Roseau head in lake-like lagoons, whose area is reduced 
two-thirds in dry weather. Their adjacent borders are 
flat and densely covered with slough grass, tall reeds and 
wild rice, while from a half-mile to five miles distant a 
girdle of forest incloses them completely. Game is even 
more abundant here than in the Roseau, because it is much 
less accessible. Thief Lake is easiest reached from St. 
Hilaire, the terminus of a spur of the Great Northern 
R. R. which runs from Crookston, whence it is fifteen 
miles by wagon and a two days' voyage in a canoe via 
Mud Lake and Thief River. Mr. T. B. Walker, of 
Minneapolis, has a lumber camp in this district. Mud 
Lake is about ten miles long by five wide, very shallow. 
485 
and contains many islands, AH of the locations men- 
tioned are nesting grounds for wild geese, herons, cranes 
and sundry varieties of ducks. Red Lake Indian reserva- 
tion lies southeast of the Thief River country, and is 
reached by a wagon trail from Crookston to the agency 
buildings, a distance of 117 miles, in detail as follows: 
Crookston to Red Lake Falls, 24 miles; the Falls to 
Kelly's, 35 miles; Kelly's to Clearwater Lake, 40 miles; 
Clearwater to Red Lake, 18 miles. The T. B. Walker 
Company has a lumber camp at Clearwater. The timber 
product of all this region is chiefly sawed at two immense 
steam mills at Crookston and Grand Falls. Red Lake is a 
twin body of water with a connecting stream, and there 
is a progressive Indian village just at their point of junc- 
ture, with many fine farms adjacent, where one will be 
surprised to learn what domesticated red men are capable 
of. There are few more estimable Indians than these in 
the LTnited States. They number about 1,200. Many 
of them work in the logging camps in winter. One of 
these days a railroad will run in close proximity to the 
village on a route which was surveyed years ago between 
Duluth and Winnipeg. 
Concisely stated, this whole extensive area, which 
covers a territory 100 miles square, is an alternation of 
forest and open spaces, interspersed with willow and alder 
thickets, poplar groves and sand ridges, along whose 
slopes grow tamaracks, jack pines and spruce. These 
ridges are the ancient beaches of Lake Agassiz, whose 
glacial outlet was the Red River of the North, and have 
been traced around its entire marginal circumference by 
Government surveyors. They vary from ten to thirty 
rods in width, and from ten to twenty feet in height on the 
lake front, sloping gradually landward, and are as level 
as a roadbed. Some of them extend for thirty miles with- 
out a break. (The lake was originally 600 miles long.) 
The most remarkable beach is a section in the Roseau 
country some forty miles east of the Red River, which is 
flanked on either side by an extensive "nuiskeg" or 
quaking marsh. It was used as a cart trail by the fut 
traders for half a century. At one time it served as a 
line of defense for the Chippewas in their war with the 
Sioux, and was rudely fortified. Recent railway sur? 
veyors have always reckoned it as just so much com- 
pleted road bed in the event that construction shall be 
decided upon. 
Wherever the barrens, meadows and open glades are 
dry enough not to be miry, grass and vetches grow waist 
deep and afford rare grazing for cattle, of which there are 
many herds; but there are areas of great extent resem- 
bling the bogs of Ireland, which can never be reclaimed 
for agricultural purposes, notably the Big Muskeg, which 
is four miles wide. Into such quagmires a pole can be 
thrust 20 feet deep without striking hardpan. They are 
filled with vegetable ooze, which becomes peat when dried. 
In the timber there is a wealth of hazel nuts and acorns 
where deer and bears luxuriate in autumn, varying their 
wholesome diet with a relish of wild plums and high bush 
cranberries or service berries, and a range through the 
nutritious pastures of the adjacent "opens." Wherever 
there are reedy patches and slough grass the geese breed, 
and in tracts which fire has run over the moss and turf 
have been burned to the very roots. Heavy rains fall- 
ing afterward upon these scalds have made a paste of the 
ash beds, in which the slightest footprints become legibly 
stamped, like the famous tracks in the lias of the Connec- 
ticut River Valley, Such places, where water remains 
standing, are resorted to by snipe and many varieties of 
sandpipers and phalaropes. No region was ever so ad- 
mirably adapted to the varied wants of caribou, elk and 
moose, and no region, excepting perhaps the Everglades 
of Florida, was ever more secure from human intrusion, 
for large areas are utterly impassable to the hunter until 
the frost has made them solid, while the spreading hoofs 
and splay feet of the caribou and moose can traverse them 
like snowshoes. 
Moose are in their prime in September and October, 
though the State law does not permit hunting except in 
November, and that for five days only, from the Sth to 
the loth. When moose are rutting the meat is rank. 
The same is true of all cervid;E. State laws as to close 
time might' be amended on this point with advantage. 
Moose are no mean adversaries when on their mettle. 
They are wary and vicious when at bay, and hard to stalk 
among the muskegs and islands of timber. They feed 
a good deal at night, and show themselves at the margins 
of thickets near ponds and streams early in the morn- 
ings, and they will keep within the vicinity of water holes 
and running water until the forming ice becomes too 
strong for them to break. With the close of the rutting 
season, or just about the time when the law permits 
shooting, they lose their vigor and energy, and deteriorate 
in flesh, weight and general appearance. About Nov. i 
they begin to look about for winter quarters, which are 
usually selected with reference to the abundance of 
browse, such as swamp maple, poplar, basswood, red 
willow and various species of firs. There is no birch in 
the northwest corner of Minnesota. Then they no longer 
range _ defiantly through the forests as in the early fall, 
browsing and scattering branches right and left in their 
rampage, but become moody and stupid, hardly recover- 
ing from the rutting campaign until the following spring. 
In this plight they become an easy prey to the hunter, and 
it is at such a time, unfortunately, that they are most 
sought for and killed. Until the very wise five years' in- 
hibition which was made by law, the destruction was most 
wanton, one James Fuller ton and others whom he guided 
having brought out from the Two Rivers country, twenty- 
eight miles east of Hallock. no less than seventy-six head 
of elk, in addition to an equal number of moose. 
In the depth of winter a comparative novice with good 
dogs and snowshoes can readily win the reputation of 
being a famous nimrod. Yet a man must be hardy and 
tough to hunt in that high latitude with the thermometer 
freezing in the bulb as it often does. Experienced resi- 
dents who know how to clothe themselves suitably, will 
keep comfortable both in camp and on the trail when 
others not au fait will suffer. If a person dress too heavily 
he is apt to perspire on the chase and freeze at the halt. 
Warm body flannels, a cardigan jacket with a lined dog- 
skin coat over that, a fur cap or tuque to cover the 
ears, plenty of felt or duffel for the feet and a fleece-lined 
sleeping bag at night make up a proper hunting outfit 
Some make a weather mask for the face from the top of an 
old felt hat, cutting holes for the eyes and fastening it 
